
Class _.hj,65_ 



SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 



SKKTCH 



Norse Discovery of America 

At the Festival of the Scandinavian Societies assembled 
May i8, 1891, in Boston 

ON THE OCCASION OF PRESENTING A TESTIMONIAL TO 

EBEN NORTON HORSFORD 

IN RECOGNITION OF THE FINDING OF THE LANDFALL OF LEIF ERIKSON, 

THE SITEOF HIS VINELAND HOME AND OF THE ANCIENT NORSE 

CITY OF NORUMBEGA, IN MASSACHUSETTS, 

IN THE 43d DEGREE. 



7 



^6 '^' 



SKETCH 



Norse Discovery of America 

At the Festival of the Scandinavian Societies assembled 
May i8, 1891, in Boston 



ON THE OCCASION OF PRESENTING A TESTIMONIAL TO --C* '•.>•-. 

EBEN NORTON HORSFORD ^^'fl 



IN RECOGNITION OF THE FINDING OF THE LANDFALL OF LEIF ERIKSON, 

THE SITE OF HIS VINELAND HOME AND OF THE ANCIENT NORSE 

CITY OF NORUMBEGA, IN MASSACHUSETTS, 

IN THE 43d DEGREE. 



MR. HORSFORD'S RESPONSE ON RECEIVING THE TESTIMONIAL 
FROM MR. HENRY RANDALL IN BEHALF OF THE REPRE- 
SENTATIVES OF THE SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES. 



I receive this beautiful gift' with a deep sense of the honor you bestow 
upon me. I regard it as an assurance to me, personally, of your good will 
and appreciation: but more than this, as an expression of your conviction 
that, in a certain sense, I have helped you to enter into possession of rights 
won by the enterprise and intrepidity of Northmen, nine hundred years 
ago. 

If it be worthy of mention that what I have done has served to clear 
away the mists that have obscured the lustre of the great work of Rafn, I 
may tell you that my interest in the subject has been largely due to the 
influence of a Northman, Ole Bull, in whose genius and renown we all have 
pride ; and I may, perhaps, add that I should not have attempted a part at 
the unveiling of Miss Whitney's Memorial Statue, had it not been that 
loyalty to the memory of this friend seemed to require it of me. How 
largely you aided in making that occasion memorable by your co-operation 
with other Scandinavians and their friends East and West — of whom I may 
not forget specially to mention Professor Anderson and Mrs. Ole Bui], is 
known to all who hear me. 

For the kindred service at the unveiling of the Tablet of the Norum- 
bega Tower, near the site of the ancient city of Norumbega, and more 
especially the musical features of it so gracefully and effectively supplied 
by the Soloist and the Choir, were a great satisfaction and pride to me. 

The only return I know how to make is cordially to thank you. 

I have thought it might not be unwelcome to you to hear from me, 
as a memento of the occasion, a few words which I conceive hold the ready 
and serviceable demonstration of the place of Vineland. 

' An oi-igmal picture iu colors of Lief s house In process of buUdiug, on the bank of Charles 
Kiver, at flood tide; surmounting an Inscription, followed by the names of fifty-four Scandinavian 
Societies, supported on one side by the figure of Lief, a copy of Miss Whitney's Statue, and on the 
other by an Indian Maiden with the surroundings of the New World ; — designed and executed by Mr- 
Philip BSiss, a Norwegian artist residing in New York ; the whole set In a broad frame of pear wood 
elaborately carved in illustration of the Vineland Sagas and of Scandinavian Mythology, by the Nor- 
wegian artist. Miss Amelia Strandberg, residing in Philadelphia. 



SKETCH OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE 
NORTHMEN. 

It is quite in order that Scandinavians should, this year, gather in 
Boston, to talk of the Discovery of America by their countrymen, nine hun- 
dred years ago. It will be a pleasure, next year, to take part in celebrating 
the consummation of the life work of Columbus, five hundred years later. 

As one, to-day, reads the Vineland Sagas, in the light of the Charts of 
the United States Coast Survey; in the significance of ancient New England 
geographical names; in the manifold contributions of the Ethnological Bu- 
reau of the Smithsonian Institution, and in the results of individual research,, 
on the coast and in the field, he becomes aware of how greatly the range of 
study has been enlarged, how much the material for discussion has increased 
and how much has been added to the body of evidence to be considered 
and weighed, since the publication of the Danish Antiquaries, half a centriry 
ago. 

In my address at the unveiling of the statue to Leif Erikson, four years 
ago, I intimated that the special fitness of the memorial, then set up in Bos- 
ton, might in time become obvious. The time has come. Two years and a half 
ago I announced the discovery of the Landfall of Leif and of the Site of his 
houses in Vineland; and a year later Scandinavians united with the Council 
of the American Geographical Society in commemorative exercises at 
Watertown on the Charles, the site of the seaport of a Norwegian colony,, 
the ancient city of Norumbega. 



4 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

The name of the city was familiar to Elizabeth of England in the 16th 
century. It was not wholly forgotten at the time of the advent of the 
Puritans half a century later. 

Henceforth a new interest will attach to the seat of Leif's Statue in the 
capital of Massachusetts. The American, native born, will come here, as of 
old, to rekindle his pride in his birthright. He will continue to find the spot 
hallowed because the great war of Independence drank deeply of inspiration 
from the basin of the Charles; because here Winthrop came to found a 
Christian Commonwealth, and because a little earlier Bradford and Standish 
established, a few leagues away, the Colony of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 
On the shores of Massachusetts Bay, John Cabot made his landfall in 1497, 
and set up the emblems of sovereignty which gave to England whatever claim 
as against Portugal, Spain and Holland, she possessed, by right of discovery, 
to the soil of America. Earlier than Cabot, the Breton French had 
taken possession of and occupied this region. This was the original 
New France. Here was the land of Verrazano. It was also the land of 
Gomez, and the land of Cortereal. And here came Ayllon and Miruelo. 
This was the earliest Baccalaos. 

Not for these considerations alone is this region classic ground ; but be- 
cause also, it is the spot to which, centuries before, Leif and Thorfinn, the 
Northmen came; and because Boston Harbor was the gateway through which 
the founders of the first European Colony in America passed to the land of 
spontaneous corn and wine, — Vineland the Good. 

It is now six years since I intimated in a paper on the "Landfall of 
John Cabot" that the name Carenas given to Cape Cod on the map of Lok 
had weighty import. On this map of Lok, Carenas is linked with the name 
of John Cabot, the date of 1497, and the land called by Henry VII 
Newe-fonde-lande — a name later transferred to the great island at the mouth 




Coas^ Su 



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t^tonofno^ 



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THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 5 

of the St. Lawrence. I hinted that Carenas was the heir of Kjolrnes or 
Kjalarnes, an Icelandic, reminiscent name, familiar in the Vineland sagas as 
that of a promontory where a broken ship's-keel was set up as a beacon 
in the sand. (See Pictorial Legend pp. 16-17.) 

This hint grew out of the conviction that Kjalarnes had been evolved 
on successive maps into Carenas, Coaranes, C. darenes, Cape de Arenas, Cape 
de las Arenas, Cape Sablons, Cape Blanc, Witt Hoek, and finally, after 
various others, gave place to the name of Cape Cod. All these attached to the 
same point on our coast, the southern cape of Massachusetts Bay. The 
constant geographical outline, bearing a new name with every score or 
two of years, made the task of tracing the Landfall of Leif, through the 
centuries on the maps, a fascinating one. The removal, from my own mind, 
of every trace of doubt that the many names applied to one and the same 
point, has taken time. 

There have come to light in the course of my researches other 
things of interest. Among them, besides the locality of Leif's Landfall, 
the site of his houses and the seat of what Kev. Dr. De Costa called the 
"Lost City of New England" — the ancient city of Norumbega, not the 
least important are the evidences of the prosecution of great industries by 
Northmen for a long time. Some of these discoveries such as the fisheries 
and the collection of maserwood led to the discovery of the site of Norum- 
bega. They cannot fail to furnish themes of remunerative study for some 
time to come. 

The principal result, to commemorate which the statue of Leif was set 
up four years ago — was the Discovery of America by Northmen. The de- 
termination of the particular island on which Leif landed, once distinct, but 
now joined to the mainland — at the north end of Cape Cod, and the identi- 
fication of the spot on the bank of the Charles where he built his houses, 
illustrate the fitness of a memorial to Leif in Boston. 



6 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

Of how this identification in all its details has been carried to comple- 
tion, has, as I have intimated, been withheld from publication because of 
my desire to leave no question in the minds of others, as to the fact of 
the solution of the Problem of the Northmen. 

In the brief time I may venture now to take, I can at the best give only 
a summary, rather than the details, of the argument. The full presentation 
of the evidence will appear at no distant day. 

VINELAND. 

There may be said to be two questions — one, of the existence of a Vine- 
land, so called — a region on the west side of the Atlantic, where corn and 
grapes grew without cultivation; and another question: — the latitude of 
this region to which Leif, according to Icelandic history, gave the name of 
Vineland. 

The existence of a Vineland, at all, is generally supposed to rest 
upon Icelandic records, and to share with the Vineland Sagas, whatever 
criticism may befall them. This is a mistake. The question of the exis- 
tence of a Vineland of corn and wine was settled in about 1070, when the 
Prelate Adam of Bremen gave to the world his conversation with the 
King of Denmark a few years before. 

It was at the least some three hundred years later that the Vineland 
sagas were written down. 

In these there are substantially only four Vineland stories — Biarni's, 
Leif s, Thorwald's and Thorfinn's ; and they all revolve about the Landfall 
of Leif and the Site of his Houses in Vineland. 

But the fact that there was a Vineland does not rest on any or all of 
them. These Vineland Stories, as I have said, only reached manuscript 
form, in Iceland toward the end of the fourteenth century. But Adam 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 7 

of Bremen was told in a personal interview with the king of Denmark, of 
the discovery of Vineland about half a century after Thorfinn was here. 

Referring to the region beyond Greenland, the king said, — "an idand, 
lying in that ocean, had heen visited by many. It was called Vineland 
because grapes making excellent wine grow there spontaneously, and cereals 
without jilanting." The king assured the Dignitary of the church that this 
relation was trustworthy as it came from Danes, his own subjects, who had 
been in Vineland. 

This testimony is quite independent of the Vineland Sagas, — indeed — 
wholly independent of Icelandic literature. It is difficult to see what form 
of evidence could more surely command our confidence than the personal 
record, by a most scholarly, pious, enlightened and trusted officer of the 
Church, in a volume relating to fields of missionary labor in Northern 
Europe, of a conversation with the Sovereign of a Realm, whose subjects 
had reported to him the results of their voyages in distant seas. 

It establishes the fact of a Vineland of spontaneous corn and wine 
in the distant western ocean ; gives hints of its climate, and of its position, 
regarding it as an island, by itself, like Iceland.' 

In regard to the second question as to where Vineland was, there are 
the Vineland Sagas. 

THE VINELAND SAGAS. 

They constitute a small body of Icelandic literature that has come 
down to us from the period of the events narrated, held for a long time in 
memory by frequent recitations, — the habit of the people — and as part of 

'Adam von Bremen, Historia Ecclesiastica § 246, p 151. "Preterea unam aclliuci«SMZ«m recitavit 
rex Danias Suenus Estritius a multis repertam in illo Oceano, quae dicltur Winland, eo quod ibi vited 
sponte nascuntur vinum optimum fereutes. Nam et fruges ibi non semiuatas abundare, non fabulosa 
opinione, sed certa Dauorum comperimus relatione." 



8 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

a system of education, and sometimes for professional service; transmitted 
from sire and matron to son and daughter as fireside entertainment and 
culture for a series of generations, and then, with the introduction of the 
art of writing, transferred to parchment. 

The Sagas, on Avhich it is assumed that the old Icelandic geography — 
as shown on the map of Stephanius, of the Icelandic University at 
Skalholt, — and also the essential points of the earliest discovery of the 
coast of New England, rest, were preserved in the families of Eirik Raude 
(Erik the Red), a Norwegian of distinction, and Thorfinn Karlsefni of 
Icelandic birth, a man of wealth and accredited as of royal descent. 

The Vineland Sagas, in summary, if not in detail, are familiar to every 
Scandinavian. 

The relations of Bjarni and Leif are, obviously and thoughtfully true, 
extremely simple, and free from repetition, — of the type of "ship^s logs." 

The Thorfinn relations, as given in Rafn's "Antiquitates Americanse," 
bear witness to the difficulties that have arisen to perplex translators and 
even the earliest scribes who collected and arranged the original traditions. 
The forms of expression in which this feeling of doubt is conveyed on the 
part of Scribes or copyists are familiar ; such as " They say," or " Some 
men say," or, " It is said, etc." There are, in the order of arrangement of 
Thorfinn's Sagas, palpable defects of sequence, much to be criticised, 
undoubtedly, if we were considering the relations as typical models of his- 
torical writing ; but as a collection of recorded verities in the history of an 
ancient people, to be studied not only for what is obvious, but for what 
may be found between the lines, they are of inestimable value. The depar- 
ture of Thorfinn's fleet from Greenland is mentioned at least Jive times. 
Some of these have been mistaken for fragments of accounts of other voyages. 
The relations differ in the kind and variety of minutiae which they have 
preserved. In some cases, doubtless, we have hearsay. The relators may 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 9 

have been on different ships, or they may not have visited the places men- 
tioned at the same time ; but closely studied, the Sagas strengthen one another, 
and clear up what are obscurities to the superficial reader. 
The first of them is the 

STORY OF BIARNI. 

Biarni, a Norwegian supercargo, who, on a voyage in 985 from Iceland 
to Greenland, had been driven he knew not whither in a violent northeast 
storm accompanied by fog and rain for many days, found himself as the sky 
cleared, off: a wooded projection of coast, without mountains, but having here 
and there little hillocks in the interior. He did not land, as the country did 
not look like Greenland, — which he had heard was a region of ice-covered 
mountains j — but reversed his course leaving the land on the left, and sailed 
to the northeast with a fair wind, for two days ; when he came to another 
projection, also low, without mountains, and wooded. Leaving this second 
projection without landing, and with the same favoring wind, growing 
stronger, after three days' sail, he came on a high land, and having snow- 
covered mountains, which proved to be an island, the nearest part of which, 
as he afterward found, was several days' sail to the southwest of Greenland. 
After sailing three or four days more, under stress of canvas so great as to 
compel him to shorten sail, he reached Heriulfsness, the residence of his 
father, at the southern extremity of Greenland. 

He had sighted the three great salients projecting into the Atlantic, 
all within less than twelve days' sail southward from Greenland. They are 
given on Stephanius map — and are familiar to us on all modern maps. 
They are Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Cape Cod. 

You will not fail to remark to the credit of the Sagamen and the 
loyalty to the truth which they sacredly observed, that Bjarni, who has told 
us so much, was not even once on shore, from the time he left Iceland till 



10 THE NOESE DISCOVERT OE AMERICA. 

he reached Greenland, all the way by Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, Cape Race 
and Belle Isle to his father's home, at Heriulfsness. 
The next story is of Leif. 

LEIF'S EXPEDITION AND LANDFALL. 

Leif, having heard Bjarni's story, fifteen years after his voyage, buys, 
equips, and mans his ship. He first touches the land Bjarni had last dis- 
covered and coasted, notes the flat rocks along the shore and the snowy 
mountains in the interior, calls it Helluland (Newfoundland) and sails away 
for Bjarni's next salient, taking it in reverse. He finds the country flat, the 
shore low towards the sea and sandy, lands for a little while and sails away for 
the third salient. Bjarni had consumed three days from the land, low, 
wooded and without mountains, (Nova Scotia ) to the Island having snowy 
mountains (Newfoundland). 

Here is Leif's record from the time of leaving Markland, (Nova 
Scotia) : — 

" Leif said, 'We shall give this land a name according to its kind, and 
call it Markland.' Then they hastened on board and put to sea again, with 
the wind from the northeast, and were out for two days until they sighted 
land." Bjarni had consumed two days in sailing over the same track in the 
reverse direction. "They sailed to the country and came to an island that 
lay to the north of the mainland.'''' 

This was the Landfall of Leif. 

Having landed and observed the sweetness of the dew, they again em- 
barked. The Saga says, — 

"Then they went on board, and sailed across a bay that lay between 
the island and a ness that j lotted out northeastward from the mainland, and 
steered .... westward, past the ness,'' — the projection. 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 11 

The two great facts relating to the Landfall are — (1) descending, in 
the last section of the voyage, with plain sailing from the northeast, iqoon 
an island lying to the north of the mainland; which island (2) and main- 
land had on the west, a broad bay ojjening out to the north. 

Let us see how much this means. 

Leif sailed to the southwest from Cape Race — Newfoundland. He 
could not have fallen on an island on the north shore of Nova Scotia. 

Why? First, because the north shore of Nova Scotia could not be 
reached from Cape Race with a northeast wind; and Second, if it could, Cape 
Breton, the Magdalen Islands, and Prince Edwards Island would have inter- 
cepted the voyage and prevented it in the time given in the Sagas by 
Bjarni for the voyage in the reverse direction. 

Bjarni's voyage had been made from the southwest, to the southern end 
of Newfoundland — to Cape Race, under a strong southwest wind in three days. 

Leif reversed the voyage with a northeast wind. With such a wind, 
which the Saga records, Leif might have reached an island against a prom- 
ontory on the southerly shore of Nova Scotia. 

The Saga relates that, after a temporary stay on the Island of the Land- 
fall, they went on board and sailed "through a bay,'' or "across a bay'' (as 
from Cape Cod to the Gurnet), that lay between the Island and a ness that 
jutted out northeastward from the mainland — (as the great promontory 
lying between Plymouth Bay and Boston Harbor — i. e. from the Gurnet — 
Krossaness — to Nantasket). They steered the ship westward past the 
ness (as from the Gurnet past Cohasset into Boston Harbor). 

That is, after leaving the Island, they sailed across a bay which opens 
out northward to the sea. It is given on Stephanius's Map. 

That could not have occurred on the south side of Nova Scotia. Why ? 
Because bays opening out Northward to the sea cannot occur on the South 
shore of Nova Scotia. 



12 THE NOESE DISCOVERY OF AMEEICA. 

On reflection it will be clear, especially with the maps at hand, 
that this is conclusive as to the immediate region of the Landfall. It was on 
a coast of sand beaches, as the relations of Thorwald and Thorfinn, later, 
show. It could not have been on Newfoundland, since like Labrador, 
it has no sand-beaches. It could not have been on the coast of Maine, 
as there are no sand-beaches from Portland to Frenchman's Bay.' 

Had it depended on a belt of sandy shore with wooded lowland and the 
absence of mountains, as these features are common to Nova Scotia and 
Cape Cod, the evidence would have been inadequate ; but as the landfall 
depended on these two combined with a third, which can not be on the coast 
of Nova Scotia ; to wit ; a bay on the south side, opening outward to the 
ocean on the north, the landfall must have been on Cape Cod. With this 
conclusion, the relations of Thorwald and Thorfinn are in harmony. The 
Island at the north end of Cape Cod continued down to 1602 — and was 
observed, after Leif, by Cosa in 1500, Ruysch in 1507, AUefonscein 1543, and 
Gosnold in 1602. The Icelandic school map of Stephanius, used to teach the 
story of Vineland, and the coast survey maps support each other. 

About Cape Cod still lingers the name of Vineland, — in Vineyard 
Sound and Martha's Vineyard. The Dutch maps of nearly three hundred 
years ago had, along the coast north of Cape Cod, the name Wyngaerd's 
Eylandt — and Wyngaerd's Hook. On a French map,^ Vingaert's Eylan is 
placed directly against the name of Cambridge — an inland locality. 
Vingaert or Wyngaerd is Dutch for Vineland. Originally, this whole 
region was supposed to be made up of Islands. (Ramusio). 

FROM THE LANDFALL TO THE SITE OF LEIp's HOUSES. 

Let us now accompany Leif from the Landfall to the site of his houses. 
We have seen that "returning to their ship, they sailed across a bay 

'The two projections having sand-beaches are Nova Scotia and Cape Cod. Lief sailed southward 
to his Landfall from the more northern of the two. 

''A photographic copy from an original, never published, loaned to me by the late Gen. Barlow. 



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THE NORSE BISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 13 

which lay between the island and a promontory running from the mainland 
toward the northeast, and directing their course westward they passed be- 
yond this promontory." 

They had come across the mouth of Cape Cod Bay, past the Gurnet, and 
Cohasset rocks, and into Boston Bay. 

Thorfinn mentions that '■'■'before, the mouth of the 7'iver were great 
Islands^ There are some forty large and small in Boston Harbor and at 
its entrance. Thi^ river flowed through the "5op' — a small landlocked hay 
salt at flood tide and fresh at ehV — our ancient Boston Back Bay. There 
is not another " Hop '' on our coast with a bay to the southeast opening out- 
ward to the north and a promontory of sand beyond. Stephanius' map, 
the Coast Survey and the Admiralty Charts place this beyond question. 

The Saga says, "In the bay there were great shoals at ebb-tide, and the 
vessel stood up, and it was far to see from the ship to the sea." 

That is to say: They grounded in ehb-tide, on soft bottom, against Fort 
Point, opposite NoddWs Island {East Boston), as one sees on the pilot 
chai't of Boston Harbor. 

"So great was the desire of the men to go ashore, that they would not 
wait the return of the tide, but sprang ashore and ran to the land where a 
river flows out of a lake." 

And this was the mouth of the river between Fort Point and East 
Boston. 

"So soon as the waters rose up under the ship, then took they their 
boats and rowed to the ship, and it moved up the river, and thence into the 
lake, and there they cast anchor." 

The ship moved, that is, floated of itself up the river on the flood tide 
into the lake (the ancient Boston Back Bay). 

'Thorfinn gave this desci'iptive name. Leif spoke of it as a Lake through which a river flowed to 
the sea. The Saga also mentions that the river flowed from the west to the east. 



14 THE NOESE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

Except at high tide the vessel (it was a merchant-ship bought of Bjarni) 
could not enter the Charles above the Lake (the inner mouth) , that is, near 
and below the Brookline Bridge. Thorfinn states this later of his vessel. 

There is no practicable landing place going up the • Charles river 
from the entrance to the Back Bay — between Charlestown and Copp's 
Hill, — to Symond's Hill, near Gerry's Landing, — against the foot 
of Appleton Street, Cambridge." Why? Because, on a rising tide there is 
only mud on either side of the channel throughout the Back Bay : nor 
could they land in the meadows above, subject as they are to overflow at 
high tide. 

" They brought up from the ship their skin cots, and made booths. 
After this they took counsel together, resolved to remain for the winter, and 
built there large houses.'' 

ALL WHO FOLLOWED LEIF FROM BEATTAHLID IN GREENLAND CAME TO 

LEIf's HOUSES. 

First, of those who came after Leif in point of time, was Thorwald. 

The Saga says " Thorwald, Leif's brother, two years after Leif 's return, 
upon consultation with Leif, made ready for his voyage, and put to sea. 
Nothing is said of the expedition until they came to Leifs houses." 

Thorfinn, with his expedition of three or more vessels and one hundred 
and sixty souls, of whom seven were women, came — with at least the part 

' It is not necessary to remind one "wlio lias been at sea tliat in order conveniently to land from a 
plank at both high and low water, the ship should rest on an even keel — and that the practicable 
shore cannot be of meadows overflowed at high tide — but must be solid land clearly above the 
marsh level. The Ancient Bluff of Symond's Hill was thirty-five feet above high water, and must have 
arrested the attention of Leif, even from the region of the Brookline bridge. The great mass of 
Symond's Hill, a bank of gravel, has, within some thirty odd years, been carried away to fill the so- 
called present Boston Back Bay district. Leif is conceived to have landed near the southern end of 
the Bluff, at Gerry's Landing, where the shore is bold and hard. 




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THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 15 

of the fleet which contained his wife Gudrid, the women of the colony, 
Bjarni Grimolfson, and the larger part of the company — directly to Leif's 
houses, and built additional houses. 

Freydis in the joint expedition with Helge and Finnbogi came to Leifs 
houses. 

What a fortunate circumstance that there were so many of Norse blood 
and habits, resident, successively in the same houses! They must have 
looked out on the same landscapes, fished from the same banks, rowed on the 
same river, and had more or less of common experiences. Their narrations 
must have some qualities in common. In a certain sense their Sagas must be 
like the Gospels. They must be repetitions. The student of the Sagas 
appreciates this, and it helps and guards his judgment. 

All that is recorded as having been seen about the residence of Leif in 
Vineland, whether by him or his brother Thorwald, or by Thorfinn or Gud- 
rid or Freydis : — all that is said of houses, some nearer to the water and 
some farther away ; — of fish pits in which the fish were taken in the spawn- 
ing season ; — of salmon fishing in winter ; — of the collection of maser wood, 
the canals for transporting it, and the cliff on which it was piled to dry ; — 
of the points of compass, as the river flowing toward the house, from South- 
east to Northwest; of the Skraelings issuing in canoes from behind the 
promontory at the South; of the Landing by Thorfinn on his return from 
seeking Thorhall, on the Southtoest hank; of the skin-boats — the birch- 
bark canoes, and of the paddles held upright as the canoes floated on the 
ebb-tide ; of the barter of furs for red cloth and the products of the dairy ; — of 
the collisions and the flag of truce (the white shield), — of the newly planted 
corn in Vineland, and the "white ear-of-corn" ' two months later on Cape 

^"Sveiti-axe." White ear-of-oorn. Indian Corn. Tlie grain could not have been wheat, as has 
been held. Why? Because wheat was not indigenous in America, and besides, it ripens early In 
summer, while grapes do not mature till autumn, the tiiBe when the bunch of grapes and the white 
ear-of-corn were together, brought in by the "Scots" to Tliorfinn. 



16 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

Cod, — of grapes and their gathering, — of the topography of the Hop — the 
land-locked bay, alternately salt and fresh; and of the incidents at Leifs 
houses: all help to make identification of the site of the houses certain. 
The variety and accumulation of evidence enable us to see how impossible 
it is to conceive of two localities and two sets of occurrences involving 
movements and directions, events, coincidences and sequences, — agreeing 
with each other in so many particulars. 

When I had predicted several years ago, at a scientific gathering, that 
Leif's houses once occupied a specific locality of limited extent, I had not 
recently been at the place, nor did I for more than a year thereafter visit 
it, as it had not occurred to me that the remains of wooden dwelling houses 
could have been so long preserved. So it happened that in finding the 
outlines of the foundations of houses, the fishpits, and the extraordinary 
combinations of topographical features required by the Sagas, as soon as I 
looked for them, I had the satisfaction of witnessing what might be regarded 
as the fulfilment of my predictions — that is, my deductions from the Vineland 
Sagas applied to the charts of the Coast Survey, in the light of my studies 
on the coast and in the field. 

THORWALB AND CAPE COD. 

There is a kind of evidence that appeals to some with greater force 
even than the argument resting on Geography and Hydrography, not 
necessarily because it is intrinsically superior, but because we are more 
familiar with it. It is the evidence oi Household utensils, of implements and 
decorations, into which stone and pottery, and metals, as iron, brass, and 
copper, enter. Of these numerous specimens have been found in eastern 
Massachusetts. 

There is another kind of evidence that takes still higher place. It is 
that of InscrijJtion. - Of this type I may mention an instance. It is of a 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 17 

pictorial Saga, the companion to Thorwald's story of his shipwreck on Cape 
Cod. The inscription is upon a tablet of fine slate, some four inches long, 




found with a human skeleton, a brass shield, and a fragment of what seemed 
to be an iron sword, in a grave not far from the ancient residence of a 
family known in the time of Winthrop and later, by the name of Norman, 
and near the little Island given on the local maps of Essex county as Nor- 
man's Woe (0), on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay. It was along 
this coast that Thorwald was sailing (so I divine from the Sagas) when a storm 
arose which wrecked his vessel, breaking off the keel upon the low neck, 
outside Provincetown Harbor, which connects Long Point with the Eace, — 
the western angle of the Island of Leif's Landfall. On this neck — the 
extension of the ancient Island now joined, by drifting sands, to the main- 
land, near the Highland Light, — Thorwald, after repairing his ship, set up 
the old Keel in the sand, and called the place Kjalarnes — the Promontory 
of the Keel, the present Cape Cod. 

This tablet, still preserved in the Museum of the Essex Institute at 
Salem, may, I believe, be regarded as a pictorial record of the repair of 
Thorwald's ship at the extemporized ship yard on Cape Cod, in the year 
1004. It exhibits the lines of skids and other conveniences for hauling up 
the vessel, to make the bottom accessible, and the old Keel set up on the 
neck, so confirming the story of the renewal of the Keel, told in the Saga of 
Erik the Red. 



18 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 



THE LATITUDE OF VINELAND. 



I ask your attention to another point to which great interest 
attaches — the latitude of Vineland. 

Leif related that " on the shortest day of the year in Vineland they had 
the sun at eykt and dagmaV — the afternoon lunch, and the breakfast.' It 
was equivalent to saying that on the shortest day of the year, in Vineland, 
the sun rose at half past seven and set at half past four. This was excep- 
tional. It could not have been in Greenland or Iceland, as he knew, and 
as was generally known. It was new, in the experience of the ship's com- 
pany. They had never before been so far south.^ 

It was early seen that this observation held the Key to the latitude of 
Vineland. 

Eykt was a meal between dinner and supper, and dagmal was break- 
fast as distant in the forenoon from the midday meal as Eykt was in the af- 
ternoon. These times fell at sunrise and sunset in Vineland on December 
21st. 

As Eykt and Dagmal were points, or brief intervals of time, like sunset 
and sunrise, if one could know the time by the watch, when Eykt occurred 
at sunset on the shortest day of the year, at a given place, he would know 
that the length of the shortest day of the year at that -place was nine hours. 
Knowing the length of this, the shortest day, a little calculation gives 
the latitude. How was this found out ? 

It happened once that Snorre SLurleson, the great poet and historian of 
Iceland, observed and left on record, that Eykt occurred at sunset, at his 

' It was a Christian usage to "refer to the evening and the morning" rather than the "morning and 
the evening." 

= Leif also observed that the days and nights were more nearly equal in Vineland than they were 
in Greenland or Iceland. 



THE NORSE DISCOVEEY OF AMEEICA. ] 9 

residence — Reykholt — on the opening day of winter — that is, on the first 
Saturday between the 11th and the 17th of October. 

To know then, the time of Eykt, it was only necessary to know at what 
hotir and minute sunset took place at Snorre's residence on the opening day 
of the Icelandic winter — about the middle of October. The enlightened King 
of Denmark, made aware of this, directed Thorlacius, an astronomer, to 
determine by careful observation the exact time of sunset on this day at 
Reykholt. 

It was found to be at half-past four. This was the moment of Eykt. 
An event occurring at Eykt occurred at half-past four in the afternoon. 

This four hours and a half in the afternoon before sunset, with as much 
more in the forenoon, after sunrise, gave the total length of the day, as nine 
hours, wherever sunset and eykt might be coincident in time. 

It gave to Rafii, the immortal author of the Antiquitates Americante, 
the length of the shortest day as observed by Leif in Vineland. He felt 
that it could be trusted. It rested on the astronomical observation of 
Thorlacius. The length of the shortest day in Vineland gave the latitude 
of Leifs houses. It was, as determined by Rafn, near Newport on the shore 
of Narragansett Bay, in latitude 41° 24' 10". 

But, somewhat unhappily for this result, it was later found that the 
time of the meal, called Eykt, was not everywhere the same in Norway. It 
varied with the latitude and the prevailing habits of the people. At Bjornsen's 
home in Gudbrandsdal it is the meal taken at about five. Farther south, as in 
Christiania, it is half an hour later; and (north of Trondhjem?), it is said by 
Vigfussen, to be at half-past three. 

This irregularity in Norway led Professor Storm of the University of 
Christiania to the conclusion that Eykt, in the sense of a point of time, must 
be given up as a factor in determining the latitude of Vineland. It must be 
regarded, he held, as an hour ending at half-past four. Certain ecclesiastical 



20 THE NORSK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

ordinances of ancient Iceland seem to lend support to this view. 

I have been led to another conclusion. 

The fact that Snorre records the coincident occurrence of Eykt and of 
sunset on a given day carries in it the chief point of interest, to wit: that 
one of the two factors was variable in its time. The other was uniform in 
its time. Eykt at Reykholt, as time, was constant. Sunset, as time, was 
variable. Sunset is a point, not an hour. It is not the same point on 
successive days.' 

Why was Eykt constant ? For various reasons. Eykt was a meal, 
the time of taking which was fixed, by a human want. It was the settled 
custom. The time for this meal, like the moment of midday, for obvious domes- 
tic and social reasons, such as economy of time, the keejDing of appointments, 
the needs of cattle and sheep, herdsmen and shepherds, attendance at school, 
on public gatherings, farming, fishing, etc. — must be uniform in the same gen- 
eral latitude throughout considerable districts, as the convenient and success- 
ful pursuit of their principal avocations made it desirable. Moreover it was 
the chief division of time in the afternoon. A habit becomes exacting, 
all the more with a people who in general, are, from necessity, constantly 
employed, and therefore having no time to be wasted in the needless over- 
lapping of engagements. Habits acquired in early life are broken up with 
■difficulty in later years. The Rev. Dr. Henderson, the missionary to Ice- 

' Could two events, either of which required at the most but a few minutes of time,- be said to be 
coincident, because they happened in the same hour? Especially could an astronomer regard them as 
coincident in time, when his observations fixed one of them as occurring at the moment of 4.30, 
■when the other might have been sixty minutes earlier? Is it reasonable to hold that when Leif said 
that the sun shone at eykt and dagmal, on the shortest day of the year, he meant that each con- 
sumed an hour's time? Bjarni and Leif came some twelve day's sail south of Greenland, where we 
know the shortest day of the year is about nine hours long. What was the foundation of the confi- 
dence of Rafn that In Leif's remark was held the latitude of Vinland? Did the astronomer know the 
meaning of Eykt? and if he did, and it was a whole hour of time, why did he not say that the end of 
Eykt was at 4.30? 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 21 

land, in 1813 and 1814, says the habits and customs of the people have re- 
mained unchanged for nine hundred years. 

Half past four as Eykt was a period — like that of Sunset — of a few 
minutes at most, for a hurried meal, as well known at Reykholt, as twelve 
or midday. 

The farmers, the shepherds, the fishermen, the mothers and the child- 
ren in the general latitude of Reykholt a few leagues only from Reykaviky 
the present capital, on the one hand, and less from Skalholt, the great 
School, on the other, would all obey the same Eykt. So it came about that 
when Eirik Raude gathered his ships and their crews in Breidafjord — and 
departed from Schnefelsness, within the same degree of latitude as Reyk- 
holt, for Gunniborn's Island and southern Greenland, they took with them 
the life-long habit of a lunch at half past four. As a matter of habit the 
meal and the time of it were coupled in their minds and their wants. 
They needed the lunch at half past four as distinctly as they felt the want 
of the midday meal at twelve. Eykt meant half past four, as the midday 
meal meant twelve. 

This habit — became a second nature — a part of their organism. They 
kept it up without effort. It was ingrained, and all the appointments were 
originally and naturally made to meet it, in Iceland. The boy Leif when 
he went with his father to Greenland had the habit formed in Iceland — the 
eykt of Reykholt. He obeyed it as he grew up. When, fifteen years later,, 
to manhood grown, he bought Bjarni's ship and manned it with thirty-five 
sailors, he found a body of men who had lived in the habit of a lunch at half 
past four and needed it ; and when they reached Vineland they all found it 
natural, convenient and necessary to observe the time of 4:30 for Eykt, the 
afternoon meal. 

There was only one day in the whole year in Vineland in which there 
was the minimum of daylight at the breakfast and at the afternoon meal. 



22 THE NOESE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

This was the 21st of December. 

The inflexibility of habit has preserved for us the time of Eykt, and 
with it, the length of the shortest day in Vineland. 

When I had found tvhat seemed to be the traces of Leif's houses' the 
Coast Survey records gave me the latitiide of their site. 

Now if this point were, as I believe, the site of Leif's houses, the length 
of the shortest day there, ought to have been about nine hours. 

There are some considerations in the mechanism of the heavens — the 
Precession of Equinoxes — that cause a slight change, year by year, of the 
latitude of where the day is nine hours long, on the 21st of December, and in 
the long time that has elapsed since Leif was in Vineland, the variations, one 
can see, may have been considerable. This possible variation Prof. Rafn had 
not taken into account, and he found Vineland at Newport — about a degree 
farther south than I had found it. 

Professor Storm, who has established, beyond controversy, the trust- 
worthiness of the Vineland Sagas, relying mainly on the Natural History 
Indications — and regarding Eykt as a whole hour instead of the end of it, 
found Vineland to be Nova Scotia. 

I had been led to the site of Leif's houses on the Charles without 
regard to the length of the shortest day — from the ''logs of the ships," alone- 
It remained to apply to my determination the evidence arising from 
the time of Eykt as settled by the astronomical observations of Thorlacius at 
Eeykholt. 

LATITUDE OF VINELAND. 

I addressed a note to Miss Pendleton, one of the Instructors in the De- 

' Thorfiun's Sagas had helped to define the esaot site of Leif's houses. 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. ^3 

partment of Mathematics at Wellesley College, submitting this problem. 

What was the length of the shortest day of the year, eight hundred and 
ninety years ago, in latitude forty-two degrees, twenty-tioo minutes? 

This was very nearly the latitude of what I had found to be the site of 
Lief's houses. 

Miss Pendleton made the necessary computation and gave me the 
result. 

Its length was nine hours, 2 m. 58 s.' 

This was the length of the shortest day in the year 1000, at the spot 
where, according to the results of my study of the "logs" of the Vineland 
Sagas, once stood Lief's houses in Vineland. 

The observation of Lief that Eykt and Dagmal had the sun in Vineland 
on the shortest day of the year, gave for the length of December 21st, in 
the year 1000, according to the astronomical determination of Thorlacius 
a day of nine hours. 

That is to say, the length of the shortest day of the year 890 years 
ago, at the spot pointed out by Bj ami's and Lief's logs, and Thorfinn's 
Sagas, as Lief's houses, and the length of the day deduced from Lief's 
remark that Eykt and Dagmal had the sun on the shortest day of the year 
in Vineland, differ from each other by less than three minutes. 

ARGUMENT. 

The points in the Vineland Sagas which determine the precise place 
where Leif landed, and the spot where he built his houses, may be thus 
smnmarized. 

• Substantially the same result, taking into account the Precession of the Equinoxes, is given by 
Prof. Storm, from Geelmuyden of Christiania, and also by Mr. A. W. Reeve — from Capt. Phythian of 
the National Observatory at Washington. 



24 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

1. The fact, according to Icelandic records, of a voyage of some four- 
teen days' sail southwestward from Greenland, by Leif Erikson, in about the 
year A. D. 1000, to a region where the shortest day of the year was nine 
hours long, where grapes and corn grow wild, and which he called Vineland: 
and the coincident fact of a Vineland of fruits and wine in the Western 
Ocean fixed by Danish records independently of Icelandic literature. 

2. The fact that Leif at the end of his voyage, after two days' plain 
sailing to the southwestward from the sand beaches of Cape Sable (Nova 
Scotia — Markland), — the first beaches to be found on the route from Green- 
land down our coast, — landed at the north end of a long promontory 
(Cape Cod) having on the west a broad and deep bay opening out- 
ward to the sea in the forty-third degree. 

3. The fact of the presence of physical remains, as walls, pavements, 
stone dams, wharves, ditches, amphitheatres, along a river flowing from the 
west, through "a land-locked bay, salt at flood tide and fresh at ebb," into 
an archipelago, all in a province called Norway on the early maps, and in 
the latitude of Boston. 

4. The fact that this region called Norway was in the original New 
France (Bancroft) and included the White-man' s-land — Huitra-manna-land 
of the Sagas, — also called White-man's land — Wampanakke, of the Indian 
language at the time of King Philip who was a Wampanoag, and of the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was occupied by white men throughout great 
areas, according to Spanish records, a hundred years before. 

5. The fact that the names of native tribes, of numerous places in the 
country, and of the country itself, are familiar to us in derivatives from the 
name of the Norse discoverer. 

The results of the research I have made may thus be summed up. 



1836=1630^ 




tiMMuJ ?;■■ I>if lloiial SocieiT/ of .nrOie^ii .ir<n<)t„<rirJ, Ccf^enJli^'" •^'•> ^^ ■' J>Sj . 



THE NORSE DISCOVEEY OF AMERICA. 25 

CONCLUSION. 

There have been brought into harmony the ancient geography of the 
North Atlantic, as shown on Stephanius's map, with the more recent on the 
Admiralty charts and the work of the United States Coast Survey; the 
records of sailing time and the directions in which the winds blew to Bjarni 
and to Lief ; the coast lines and topography and their distinguishing fea- 
tures described by one and recognized by the other ; the undercurrent of 
details running through the Sagas of Erik the Ked and Thorfinn Karl- 
sefni, and the lesser threads of Thorwald and Thorhall, of Tyrker and Frey- 
dis, of Gudrid and Snorre Thorbrandson — all in the same strain ; the story of 
the King of Denmark to Adam of Bremen of the Vineland of wine and 
cereals, and the stories of Lief and Thorfinn of the Vineland of grapes and 
corn ; the story of Thorwald' s wreck on Cape Cod and of his setting up the 
old keel in the sand, and the legendary tablet found in the grave across the 
bay ; the furs of the Northmen, and of the Breton French ; the fishpits and 
the sacred fish at the spawning season, and also at the time of young corn 
plants; the pavements of Stony Brook, and the fish way at Watertown — 
the ancient Norumbega, on maps and in records from 1520 to 1634; the 
maps of Champlain and Lescarbot, and the relations of Purchas ; the 
walls, docks and wharves of an ancient seaport at the head of tidewater 
on the Charles, and Leif's houses, on the same river, a league below; and 
lastly, the length of the shortest day of the year in Viireland, in terms which 
reveal its latitude', as identical with that of the site of Leif's houses, de- 
termined from the Ship's log contained in the Saga of Erik the Red; 

' The latitude of the mouth of the Charles at Nantasket Roads, as astrouomically determined by 
Thevet, coiucides with that given by the Coast Survey— 41° 14'; and this substantially with that of 
Watertown, the seat of Norumbega city, a league west of the site of Leif's houses iu Cambridge. 



26 THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

all these have been brought by research — mainly in the field — into harmony 
with one another, and with the conclusion that the Landfall of Leif was in 
the latitude of Boston, and his Vin eland home in the basin of Charles River, 
in the State of Massachusetts. 



THE NAME AMERICA. 

In thus determining the validity of the claim of the Norsemen to the 
honor of having discovered the western continent, five hundred years ear- 
lier than Columbus, we have incidentally laid the foundation for ending 
some long standing misapprehension. 

It has been often suggested that the name of the continent ought to 
have been Columbia, not America. This is natural in view of his great ser- 
vices. But the question is rather one of sequences than of justice. 

Let us look at the dates. Cabot, Columbus, and Vespucius were all on 
the shores of the Western World, the Terra Firma, toward the close of the 
fifteenth century. John Cabot came to Cape Ann and Massachusetts Bay 
in 1497; Columbvis was at the mouth of the Orinoco and along the coast 
of Venezuela in 1498; and Americus Vespucius reached the same coast 
with Ojeda, in 1499.' Before either of them the Breton French were in 
Massachusetts ; and not improbably the Welsh, under Madoc, had been 
somewhere here ; and earlier than they were the Northmen; and earlier 
still, were Christian missionaries of the order of St. Columba, who gave 
the name the Northmen found — "■Irlayid UMikla' = Ireland the great; and 
which was also called Huitra-manna-land = White-man s land. 

'In the suit by heirs of Columbus against the Crowu, 1508, Ojeda testified that on his voyage of 
1499 (iu which lie landed on the coast of Venezuela), he was accompanied by "Juan de la Cosa, piloto, 
e morigo Vespuche, e otros pilotos." Judge Force says (Cong, des Americanistes p. 280, 1879), "there 
is no other record evidence of his (Vespuche') having made a Spanish voyage." 

Prof essoi- Marcou sustains, with Varnhagen, the claim that Vespucius was on the coast of Central 
America, with Pinzon and Soils, in 1497. 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 27" 

It may not be practicable if it be possible to justly apportion credit 
relatively due to priority of discovery and magnitude of service. 

It would have been a nearer appi'oach to the "fitness of things," if the 
"original New France" had been somewhere preserved in New England 
if the name of Columbus, now borne by a single State south of the Isth- 
mus, had included the whole territory down to Terra del Fuego; and 
if Cabot's name instead of having been given merely to the strait sepa- 
rating the Island of Cape Breton from Newfoundland, had been bestowed 
upon the region facing Massachusetts Bay. What has happened? 

Vespucius wrote of the voyages he had made to the New World — of 
his having been on the coast of Terra Firma. The name America 
first appeared in print in connection with the new world in 1507, five years- 
before Vespucius died, but on maps only after his death. 

How the name America came to be adopted has been consummately 
treated by Professor Jules Marcou. He has established the presence of a 
tribe of natives, still in considerable ninnbers, in Central America long 
known as Amerriques ; and also of a range of mountains and a river having; 
the name Amerrique. 

Professor Marcou points out the eminent probability that Vespucius heard 
the name, when on the American coast, and observed its resemblance 
to Amerigo, his own Christian name. It seems not impossible that his 
letters to persons in high place, giving an account of his voyages may- 
have influenced the suggestion that the Western World should have been, 
called America. 

That Vespucius found the name on the Western Continent may not 
admit of question ; but whether he did or not, the name was here, and 
Columbus knew its dialectic equivalent in Jamaica, and possibly in other less 
obvious forms as early as 1494, — -Jive years before the voyage of Ojeda. 



28 



THE NOKSE DISCOVERY OE AMERICA. 



What of this name ? How did it arise ? 

America. Repeat the name in undertone and Hsten to the suggestion 
that arises. One may ask if the honor due to the Northmen may not have 
been vindicated from the very outset. 

That the name A7nerica, is not inappropriate to the Western World, 
and that it perpetuates the claims of Erik as Discoverer when he landed on 
Greenland in 982, I have discussed at length in a paper now nearly ready 
for the press. 

Leif succeeded to his father's possessions, and added to them Helluland, 
Markland, and Vineland. These accessions are recognized as subordinate 
parts of Greenland, on the ancient and authoritative map of Stephanius, 
used at the university of Skalholt, Iceland, to teach the story of Erik 
the Red. 




X 



THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 29 

The utterance of Norse forms of the name, as Eirikr, iEirekr, Eyrikur, 
suggests, to a listener, Erika, which needs only the prefix m, one of the 
features of speech due to imperfect vocal development, remarked among 
American aboriginal races, and especially among the Indian tribes of the 
region of Norumbega (Vineland), to become Em-erika, or not remotely 
America, the name which the continent, as I conceive, has appropriately 
borne. I say appropriately, because the Northmen seem to have spread 
widely over the Northern half of the Continent and much of the Southern 
half, leaving traces of their presence from a period long antedating the 
discovery by Columbus. 



LRB S 77 



M^^ 



